6 Ways to Revolutionise Your B2B Digital Experience

B2B organisations are often comprised of siloed, decentralised departments with campaigns suffering as a result. Indeed, in a 2019 study by XM Institute, 28% of the 212 B2B companies that participated were found to have no central CX team.

Aligning teams is crucial for creating a buyer journey that is seamless across multiple platforms, touchpoints, and is also suited to prospect needs. Make sure to coordinate strategies with both marketing and sales teams, as well as share KPIs, to improve the quality of the experience.

Although it may seem obvious, having a team that is genuinely passionate about creating a satisfying experience for clients is crucial. An integral element of the buyer journey you create for prospects should be client success and the B2B sales experience.

After all, clients want to feel like their unique needs and goals are your priority. This starts with building a team of individuals who are highly motivated, believe in your products and services, and want clients to thrive.

Without thorough knowledge of client needs, preferences, and aspirations, crafting an experience that resonates with potential buyers is impossible. Client demands are diverse and ever-changing. However, by conducting proper research and fielding client feedback, it is possible to gain valuable insights to shape strategies that deliver.

Also consider the emotional needs and attitudes of prospects, as these will often transcend the more traditional, functional requirements such as value for money and quality. Demonstrating an understanding of these needs and fulfilling them is a key starting point for any B2B digital experience.

Collecting insights from the B2B sales experience is essential for keeping up to date on changing trends, pain points, and needs. Insights into these factors are essential for adapting strategies to meet them, as well as anticipating future issues that may allow for competitive positioning. Client feedback can also help uncover which products or solutions are underperforming, can be improved, or removed entirely.

Conversely, whilst creating an experience that is unique to each client’s specific needs and goals is important, maintaining consistency is also integral to long-lasting success. The greater the regularity of the experience built and the key elements it comprises of, the easier it will be to track important metrics that contribute to the evolution of your services for the better.

The complex nature of the B2B buyer experience is both its strength and greatest weakness; creating issues for both the organisation implementing the process and the buyers attempting to navigate it.

To combat these difficulties, start by investing in user experience (UX) and user interface design (UI) that facilitates user interactions on your site. The easier the experience on your website, the longer visitors are likely to stay and spend investigating the variety of product or service offerings available, as well as the content.

Another bonus of optimising website design is the boost in SEO. The better a site can be read by users and search engines alike, the more likely it is that the page’s rankings will also improve. This essentially creates a snowball effect as increasing traffic continues to indicate relevancy and become self-sufficient.

Therefore, intuitive and simple UI and UX that cuts down on lengthy processes should be at the core of every B2B digital experience and CX strategy.

In a study of B2B buyers, The Harvard Business Review found that among quality and expertise, responsiveness was integral to driving lasting client loyalty. Essentially, the fewer obstacles in the way of a B2B prospect and the less effort necessary on their part, the better.

In this way, B2B clients should be considered similarly to B2C customers; as the expectations for speed and a fluid process typically associated with B2C, are becoming synonymous in B2B.

Whilst this could arguably also fall under UI and UX design, one strategy for improving the speed at which prospects receive a response, is by installing chatbots.

Chatbots support a strong digital experience by essentially allowing for users to communicate with a brand and receive basic client support, even when team members are not online. According to Sana, on average, 60% of B2B buyers prefer online solutions such as chatbots to enquire about products, content, and sales processes as they see fit.

Implementing a system for identifying bottlenecks or necessary optimisations can also help to build and maintain an easy and fast CX.

The forced digitisation of the B2B buyer experience, as a result of the impact of the global pandemic, has caused many B2B companies to re-examine their channel marketing strategies.

After all, choosing the correct channels and ensuring they align is essential to building a robust, seamless digital experience for B2B buyers. Indeed, according to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report, 70% of respondents attributed connected processes such as frictionless and contextualised handoffs between departments or channels as one of the main factors influencing a purchase.

With this in mind, a greater emphasis on interlinked digital channels makes implementing an omnichannel marketing strategy an effective alternative to other tactics.

Essentially, omnichannel marketing puts the client at the center of the experience by informing all messaging across channels with information collected from previous interactions. The client centric nature of omnichannel marketing is its main differential from multichannel marketing, as channels in the latter are often kept separate from one another.

This means that omnichannel marketing strategies are far less likely to involve repetitive messaging or inconsistencies in client support. Each channel in omnichannel marketing shares data with one another, making it easier to evaluate and adapt elements of the buyer experience to further tailor them to prospect and client needs.

Therefore, when building your B2B digital experience, take the time to assess your channel marketing strategy and how the channels you have active (and their respective strategies) work together.

According to a study of B2B buyers by Salesforce, 67% responded that they were considering switching to a client centric company. Apart from personalisation, one of the best ways of demonstrating the prioritsation of clients and their needs, is remembering to be human.

Whilst this may sound ridiculous, appealing to the human nature of prospects is often forgotten in B2B outreach and marketing campaigns. As the division between B2B and B2C continues to dissipate, the concept that only B2C clients respond to emotion has become outdated.

Even when selling a product or service in a B2B experience, companies should attempt to connect with buyers on a human level. Buying committees are comprised of real people, with their own emotion-driven motivations that require personalised client support.

Apart from overall marketing messaging, sales outreach and any outbound communication is also a prime candidate for speaking to emotional triggers.

Rather than focusing on buzzwords and statistics in email marketing, for example, it is important to remind the prospect that they are in touch with another human. Injecting personality into outreach will increase the probability of responses as humanising messaging makes it easier for leads to connect with a brand.

Even something as simple as adding light comedy to emails and talking in a more conversational tone can go a long way to demonstrate that a company is client centric. As a result, this increases brand relatability and reduces the awkwardness of new interactions.

As mentioned above, implementing a channel marketing strategy can be hugely advantageous and should include determining social media voice. For many, social media is an opportunity to disconnect and find entertainment, even in the B2B world.

Therefore, as a marketing channel, social media represents the perfect opportunity to humanise a brand and boost relatability at the same time as awareness.

In general, regardless of the channel, prospects appreciate brands that lead with transparency. Being upfront about pricing, timeframes, acknowledging mistakes, and most importantly, how they are going to be fixed, often leads to better results.

An essential component of creating a digital experience that resonates with target audiences is developing a plan that matches the typical buyer journey for clients.

This should be multifaceted and include several variations based on the behaviour of existing clients and the segments they belong to. For example, buyers from smaller businesses may have a different buyer journey to those from a larger, global organisation which likely involve more stakeholders and complexity.

Marketers hoping to engage with prospects should approach the buyer journey as a narrative. The closer a brand is to understanding their target client, the better. This should start by anticipating the needs of a typical prospect and the context of how they arrived at a specific solution or product. Brainstorming this process will allow teams to develop multiple iterations to provide client support for a variety of needs, as well as to test each version’s accuracy and effectiveness.

Any client feedback can then be applied to shape the buyer journey to ensure prospects receive a high-quality digital experience that meets their preferences and needs. This includes streamlining the buyer journey to ensure that prospects have a seamless buying experience.

Having implemented the previous five strategies, the final method of revolutionising the digital experience is to continue to adapt and update CX based on data collected.

To ensure that any development is well-informed, it is essential to collect information from a wide variety of sources including website analytics, social media, and incentivised surveys.

Any feedback gained either through social listening or directly with client surveys, can be particularly valuable for uncovering insights into potential changes in needs or new pain points.

The more aligned brands are with these evolving needs, the easier preemptive improvements can be made to CX. Indeed, according to Salesforce, 89% of buyers expect companies to predict and meet their individual needs with dedicated client support.

Remaining proactive and continuously developing the digital experience is essential for ensuring that both prospects and clients receive the best CX possible. Updates should align with insights gathered on changes in buyer behaviour, interests, and needs. This demonstrates to prospects an organisation’s understanding and most importantly, client centricity and a willingness to adapt to meet their expectations.

Therefore, brands should aim to gather as much data from client feedback as possible to inform changes to CX preemptively.

Executing these strategies effectively can compound the lifetime value of accounts by helping with retention and also boost brand awareness. Clients and even prospects, who have enjoyed their experience will be more likely to help organisations grow their reach in the most powerful and cost-effective way, through word of mouth.